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FM transmitter

Anyone got a good one for N1?
I want to listen to music while driving. I have been using FM transmitter for my Tilt2 and iPod touch. Wondering if there's a good one for N1 too.
MY car stereo doesn't have BT so that's not an option for me :/

Unfortunately there is no FM radio yet for Nexus One as it's not supported

Anything that plugs in to your 3.5 mm jack will work just fine, differing quality depending upon price. There are no limitations when it comes to external devices, meaning you can plug anything into your 3.5 mm jack so long as the dongle is not expected to be managed by the device.

i'm still holding out hope that the chip inside our nexus that is capable of transmmiting and receiving gets enabled by update eventually

wesbalmer said:
Anything that plugs in to your 3.5 mm jack will work just fine, differing quality depending upon price. There are no limitations when it comes to external devices, meaning you can plug anything into your 3.5 mm jack so long as the dongle is not expected to be managed by the device.
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I have had bad experiences with fm transmitters that take audio from the headphone jack...so I would prefer something else
malicious85 said:
i'm still holding out hope that the chip inside our nexus that is capable of transmmiting and receiving gets enabled by update eventually
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Exactly what I'm hoping for

I just use a universal FM transmitter that you plug in the 3.5mm jack, works like a charm. Tried a couple of cheap ones first, but they had seriously lousy range, so I decided to kick it up a notch and bought a Whole House FM transmitter. Works over 50m/150feet away and sound quality is very good, it does cost a bit more than the cheap and lousy ones though. Use it in my car all the time since it doesn't have BT or AUX input.
edit:
Just to add a couple of things which I like about it: It runs on batteries/car charger/normal outlet and is one of the first products I've ever owned that works as good as advertised. I was quite shocked

Motorokr T505
Works awesome.

I bought a cheap FM transmitter to use while I was in Italy, as my rental didn't have the Aux Input functionality that I've grown so used to... Of course, it sounded like ****, so I fixed it. The antenna wire ran the length of the audio input cable... I cut that ***** open and spliced about 12 feet of solid-core wire pulled from a bit of CAT5 onto it, wrapped that around the interior of the car. Works damn well - so well, that I continued to use it after returning home just because it was easier to use than the Aux Input on my head unit :-D

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Syst...2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1276618259&sr=1-2
i bought this and it works flawlessly

GldRush98 said:
Motorokr T505
Works awesome.
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Looks promising...I need to save some bucks for it though
codesplice said:
I bought a cheap FM transmitter to use while I was in Italy, as my rental didn't have the Aux Input functionality that I've grown so used to... Of course, it sounded like ****, so I fixed it. The antenna wire ran the length of the audio input cable... I cut that ***** open and spliced about 12 feet of solid-core wire pulled from a bit of CAT5 onto it, wrapped that around the interior of the car. Works damn well - so well, that I continued to use it after returning home just because it was easier to use than the Aux Input on my head unit :-D
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Wow Sadly Im not that of a mechanical guy
Zephyron said:
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Syst...2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1276618259&sr=1-2
i bought this and it works flawlessly
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Thanks for the heads up

I've been using some Belkin one for a few years.. Full FM band in half-channel increments, and pretty easy to modify.. I added a 3.5mm jack to the thing so I can plug in an antenna to it easily. There's also some modification to increase the output, but I did not do that.
And yeah, they still suck.. SNR is low, volume is low, easy to clip the audio going into the transmitter even though it needs the volume almost all the way up because it's not very sensitive, etc...
And you STILL have to change channels on trips, because they're too weak to overpower other stations. This is especially fun on mine since I accidentally broke the LCD adding the antenna wire a few years ago, so I gotta tune the thing blindly.
Aux input is really the only way to have any quality audio... Why this isn't a standard on ALL decks, OEM included, is beyond me. I could buy a $80 CD attachment for my radio which is intended to use with the optional CD player which installs in the trunk but the input is just Aux-in so you can use it with mp3 players etc, but $80 + taking out the radio and installing this thing in a car I don't plan on keeping much longer doesn't seem like a good idea.
I'll be stomping puppies if my next car doesn't have Aux-in though.

I've been using some Belkin one for a few years.. Full FM band in half-channel increments, and pretty easy to modify.. I added a 3.5mm jack to the thing so I can plug in an antenna to it easily. There's also some modification to increase the output, but I did not do that.
And yeah, they still suck.. SNR is low, volume is low, easy to clip the audio going into the transmitter even though it needs the volume almost all the way up because it's not very sensitive, etc...
And you STILL have to change channels on trips, because they're too weak to overpower other stations. This is especially fun on mine since I accidentally broke the LCD adding the antenna wire a few years ago, so I gotta tune the thing blindly.
Aux input is really the only way to have any quality audio... Why this isn't a standard on ALL decks, OEM included, is beyond me. I could buy a $80 CD attachment for my radio which is intended to use with the optional CD player which installs in the trunk but the input is just Aux-in so you can use it with mp3 players etc, but $80 + taking out the radio and installing this thing in a car I don't plan on keeping much longer doesn't seem like a good idea.
I'll be stomping puppies if my next car doesn't have Aux-in though.
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You should've tried the Whole House FM transmitter I mentioned. You can keep it on the same channel all the time as it easily overpowers other stations. The sound quality is also good.

Car Dock disassembly - adding a LINE OUT

So I got my car dock, I knew it didn't come with a line out, but figured I could add one. You all know how aewsome it would be to have a line out jack on this thing rather than the stock "speakers". Well good news, I am going to make myself a line out and will post pictures about how I am doing it.
I have the thing taken apart right now, and just need to go buy a 3.5mm audio jack.
So, my plan will be to still use the cardock for phone and stereo profiles, just using my car stereo's aux in rather than the dock's weak speakers. I'll leave the microphones on the dock intact, just not the speakers. The good news is the speakers are removable, making room for a 3.5mm audio jack. the bad news? the jack will have to be on the dock body, not base. I'm sure if you try hard enough, one of yoiu will find a place in the base for a jack, but for now, I'm going to add one to the body, on the bottom (in portrait mode).
There you have it, I'll be able to make the dock a semi-permanent fixture in my car and never have to plug in an audio cable to get my music through my car speakers.
Pictures to follow soon, I just couldn't wait to start this project, and get some reactions / moral support.

Someone else looked at doing the same thing a while back. I seem to recall they came up against several hurdles. It is not as clear cut as it seems.
On the face of it- it would seem the approach you are taking will necessitate you having your car stereo ON and AUX selected any time you need to take a phone call. Might be a bit of a pain when you are for example, listening to the car radio and your phone rings. Or if the phone rings and your stereo happens to be turned off.
I find the inbuilt speakers totally adequate for Phone Audio. This arrangement has the benefit it being standalone and means N1 Phone Audio works regardless of current car stereo state. I send the Media Audio to my car stereo via BT though, as it sure benefits from the better speakers quality and auto pauses the Media when the phone is in use.
Good luck with it and do a search for the other thread as there is some good info info in there.
PS take a look through this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6427057&postcount=39
Might save you some heart ache

I only found that thread, after i had my dock quite disassembled and did a google search for the chipset under the RF shield. :/
I don't use my car's head unit for anything but aux audio, radio is dead to me, so I shouldn't have any problems. The hurdle is the audio being fed to the speakers do NOT share a common ground. They utilize an active-balanced system. both leads are hot, common to themselves.
Now it seems as I will have to choose which channel gets full audio and just bum 'common' from the dominant channel. or i come up with some way to convert two independent balanced audio feeds to a common ground.
I have had no luck looking up the NF2301 daughter board. I was hoping to find a schematic detailing the line level outputs, but no go. I did think it was interesting that the car dock and desktop dock share the same PCB, too bad there is no detailed schematic yet...

FAILURE - giving up
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality

Alternatively, at the point you have a desktop dock.... Instead of butchering it for the board, Just install it somewhere out of site in your car and connect it to your cars Aux-in with a 3.5mm lead. Thats what I have done. Works well. Only downside is I still have to manually connect the desktop. It does not autoconnect to deskdock when N1 is placed in cardock obviously.
Too bad your set up did not work for now.

kajer said:
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality
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Maybe it's using a low bitrate A2DP bluetooth transfer. Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.

khaytsus said:
Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.
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I believe this is the likely reason why Google didn't include an audio out port on the dock. Yes, it's on the desktop dock, but that's really all the desktop dock handles, whereas the car dock has a mic as well, etc.

I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.

wonkotron said:
I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.
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detail isn't really necessary, it's pretty straightforward.
-get a knife and use it to peel off the black rectangular sticker on the front of the dock. it's right where the battery on the phone is when it's docked.
-undo the 4 screws behind the sticker
-pop the two halves of the phone-holder part of the dock apart. if you can't get them apart with a bit of pulling get your thumb nail or a knife in between the two halves.
that's about as far as you need to go to get to the useful bits.

jamezracer said:
Stuff
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Thanks! I'll see if I can figure anything out.

I had this same idea when I first got my car dock, but I couldn't convince myself to hack my new dock. Instead I hacked an old stereo Bluetooth headset with the same mod and it works perfectly.

Don't ignore this post...
Ok So I took a dive in to it. I disassembled my dock (yes even after reading all that I could find on the internet, including this thread), but in disbelief I wanted to find out for my self. I soldered a head phone jack to the speaker wires, and thought I had something good when connected to my computer speakers. (it worked and I was surprised). But after hooking it all up in the car and actually hearing the quality, I was sorrily disappointed.
Major failure, the sound is terrible. Not tolerable at all. Comparable to scratching fingernails across a chalk board and trying to listen to some good tunes at the same time from an FM radio with very poor reception.
Heed my warning, do not attempt to mod the dock for an FM out, it will not work.

[Q] Bluetooth-> Car Aux Device (A2DP)

I want to listen to music in my car via bluetooth A2DP. My car's stereo system only has AUX in. So, I am looking for a device to pair with my phone and plug into the aux port for my car's stereo. I don't really care about hands free calling. That'd be a plus, but not necessary.
I've been doing some research and found two that look reasonable.
BlackBerry Remote Stereo Bluetooth Gateway (would require yet another charger)
Kensington LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit
Does anyone here have any experience with these or any recommendations?

If I were you, I would get something like this:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665801276
The reason being that it gets pretty good reviews and you would be able to also use it outside of the car if you wanted to.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Ericsson...1DCM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288590977&sr=8-1
I am probably going to buy this thing soon, as I have been eying it for a few days now.

If you don't want to charge there are plenty of wire in kits. Check out parrot. They might have a kit that fit s what you want.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

I bought a LiquidAUX and would advise staying away from it unless you like sub par sound quality. The volume is about 75% compared to being plugged directly into my aux port and the quality is like streaming a low quality radio station. For calls I would say it gets the job done "acceptably" but music requires much better fidelity than you'll get from it.

I use the LiquidAUX. I use it to listen to podcasts and have no problem with the sound quality. I did have to buy a ground loop noise filter.

I have the blackberry stero gateway and I use it in my living room, it works fantastic for music.

Just as a follow-up to my original post, I ended up deciding on Satechi Bluetooth Hands-free Car Stereo Fm Transmitter for iPhone 4, 3Gs & 3G and Bluetooth Stereo A2DP supported Devices (available on amazon).
The Satechi device works great! It pairs with the phone quickly and the sound quality is great. This device is exactly what I was looking for. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and has AUX out which I plugged into the stereo in my car. I was a bit worried about noise from the car's engine, but that wasn't a problem. The volume is very slightly lower than plugging the phone directly into the AUX in on my car's stereo. Realistically, that may just be my ears playing tricks on me. It also has a USB port which puts out 5V @ 1000mA for charging USB devices (my Epic).
I didn't use the FM transmitter or the call feature since the only thing I really wanted was the A2DP to AUX.

davidb_ said:
I want to listen to music in my car via bluetooth A2DP. My car's stereo system only has AUX in. So, I am looking for a device to pair with my phone and plug into the aux port for my car's stereo. I don't really care about hands free calling. That'd be a plus, but not necessary.
I've been doing some research and found two that look reasonable.
BlackBerry Remote Stereo Bluetooth Gateway (would require yet another charger)
Kensington LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit
Does anyone here have any experience with these or any recommendations?
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What kind of car? I know GM and several others have aftermarket adapters that plug into the factory harness that allow the addition of A2DP in an almost factory style addon.

done12many2 said:
What kind of car? I know GM and several others have aftermarket adapters that plug into the factory harness that allow the addition of A2DP in an almost factory style addon.
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Subaru. I'm actually planning on switching out the factory stereo for a carputer-type thing in the spring. This is just hold me out until nicer weather.

davidb_, why are you opposed to using the Aux port? Seems like a simpler yet more robust solution.

http://www.scosche.com/products/productID/1919

I was just about to post something about that Scosche one. After doing a bit of searching, it seems to be rated fairly well. I'm considering buying one for my wife's car, so if anyone has any experience with it, I'm curious to hear about some more first hand experience.

I have now used both the Kensington LiquidAUX and the Scosche BTAXS motorMOUTH II and I am wishing there was something that had the best of both. Here are my thoughts on both:
Kensington LiquidAUX
I really like the overall feature set of this solution. The remote is handy to skip past ads in podcasts and to jump back a few seconds when the navigation interrupts what I'm listening to. I also like that it is powered.
What I didn't like is that I had to get a ground loop noise filter (although once I did, the sound was perfect.) Also, there were some connection issues if I was listening with the car off and then started the car due to the interruption of power to the device. The phone never seemed to reconnect in that situation. I would have to turn off the LiquidAUX and turn it back on and wait for it to reconnect. I liked that it has an extra USB port so I could charge the phone if it was low on juice without a separate power adapter but it only charges at 500 mA so really it just kept the phone from dying without really adding extra charge during the drive. The one huge drawback to the LiquidAUX was that people found it difficult to hear me during calls. I usually had to switch the call to speakerphone to have any success. I think the location of the microphone (due to the location of my power port) was the cause of this issue. This is what led me to purchase the Scosche BTAXS.​
Scosche BTAXS
There were several things that impressed me with the Scosche BTAXS. I loved the fact that there was no mess of cables. The position of the microphone was much better because it was up at the AUX port of the head unit so I never had any complaints on calls. The sound was great and since it wasn't drawing power from the car I no longer needed the noise filter. Also, Scosche provided many great accessories in the box that other companies might have sold separately.
What I don't like about the Scosche BTAXS is the terrible battery life. I drive about 40 min to work. I cannot use the Scosche BTAXS on both my drive to and from work and leave it in the car overnight and expect it to work the next day. If I drive around on my lunch break, it may not last all day, even when I turn it off when not in use. Scosche does provide a charging cable and car adapter so I can power it during use but that takes away the coolness of not having any cables. It also introduces a little bit of ground loop noise. If I was to run it through the filter I would not be able to position the microphone where I would get the best call quality.​
In conclusion, neither of these devices is perfect. The call quality issue of the LiquidAUX is a big drawback that I wish there was a way to overcome. Since there isn’t, I will most likely stick with the Scosche and just make sure I recharge it whenever I am not in the car.

I got this from Buy.com for $20 a few months back. Hopefully you'll find a good deal like that again.
http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-Li..._1_1?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1293177894&sr=1-1

Any update on products for this. I am looking to do this in my 09 jetta through the Aux in, and none of the solutions seem that stellar. Just wanted to see if anyone had found something recently that works great.

I keep looking for a simple BT solution that can give me the best of both worlds. I'm surprised there is no simple BT receiver that can sit behind the dash plugged in to power and aux with a mic out and corded dual mic I can route myself. Liquidaux and motormouth II come close yet miss the mark. A quality mic on the kensington would make for a perfect setup. A remote mic on the motormouth II would be great. Makes zero sense at this stage of the game.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

nice thing
http://www.belkin.com/au/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=530115

Samsung Official Car Dock "MOD"

Just wanted to tell everyone I "solved" the problem of the official Samsung Car Dock not playing music and phone calls through the headset.
Well, sort of. I removed the entire "USB slider" mechanism, and just hook up the power cord and headset directly to the phone.
If you pry apart the back of the slider, there a just some small screws holding to the dock. It comes apart easily.
Not quite the software solution I would have wanted, but the official dock is pretty cheap right now compared to alternatives, so I went with it.

I dont have a car dock I just run a soldered in audible cable out of the headphone jack. Perfect audio in, but thats also because I drive a VW that I had to do that.

I'm running SC2.9.2 - car dock works just fine with the USB slider and headphone out the back. Use the Car Cradle app and hit the Speaker icon. That turns on the USB sound. Been working for several of the previous versions of Froyo also.

I'm having a lot of trouble believing that none of you guys ever pop into the Dev section.
OTB'd CM6 FTW

Wouldn't an easier solution have been to just turn dock the phone upside down then flip the dock around? No need to pull of the slider mechanism.

3.5mm FM Car Transmitter Car Charger - Thoughts??

Hey guys,
Got a HTC Sensation, would like something which does
1. charge while in car
2. fm transmitter (I don't have bluetooth or aux in my car)
3. a holder in the car so I can use gps easier
I found this:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-5mm-FM...613695?pt=PDA_Accessories&hash=item1c1d79eb7f
Any thoughts??
Any other suggestions?
I'm in Australia.
Many thanks!

Since that one is a universal dock, it seems to charge from the bottom since most phones do. The problem with that is the Sensation's charge port is on the side.
Also, I'm very very picky about audio and FM transmitters nearly always produce static or some kind of white noise.
My solution/reccomendation for cars without an AUX port is to pick up one of these bad boys: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Car-cassette-Adapter-3-5mm-plug-/110650779646?pt=AU_Electronics_Portable_Audio_Accessories&hash=item19c34ce7fe
It's a cassette tape that provides you with an aux cable.
Then to cover your mounting needs, just get something like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Car-Mount-Holder-Charger-HTC-Sensation-Incredible-S-/190560511133?pt=AU_MobilePhoneAccessories&hash=item2c5e4aa49d
And it even comes with a car charger.
If you are worried about wires and want this to be a stationary installation, use black zip ties.
If you have any questions or want other suggestions, let me know.

Thanks for the reply constrabus.
Problem is...I don't have a cassette player in the car.

I got something similar off of amazon a few years ago for my MT3G. The FM transmitter worked just fine. I now use it with my Sensation 4G, but my newer truck has an aux. jack so I don't use the FM anymore. The one I got plugs directly into the lighter jack and then I run a USB cable from the side into my phone. I have had it for several years without a problem. Go for it.

I have a fm transmitter with a 3.5 jack I plug it in and it doesn't go in all the way and only plays the left side. Same thing on my EVO but on my transform it goes all the way in and plays both sides. Any ideas on how to fix it.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using xda premium